Schools lied through their teeth and said AA is just a minor boost in marginal cases. That's not it at all. Whether or not they'll admit to it, AA ends up as a 10ish point bump in the LSAT for every, single black applicant.

New court is going to tear them to shreds.

Oh boy, I'd love to know where you got these statistics, so unless you can provide a link, I'll assume you're making it up. Again you're only looking at the fact that it is unfair to whites, and (I assume) yourself.

"In recent years there has been virtually no change, for example, in the proportion of law school applicants with LSAT scores of 165 and higher who are black. In 1993 blacks constituted 1.1% of law school applicants in that score range, though they represented 11.1% of all applicants. Law School Admission Council, National Statistical Report (1994) (hereinafter LSAC Statistical Report). In 2000 the comparable numbers were 1.0% and 11.3%. LSAC Statistical Report (2001)."

Ok, not sure what that was in reference to. Again, I feel like I have to explain this to you. They don't get points added to their LSAT!!!

Blacks only account for 1% of all scores 165 and higher. If schools didn't add a considerable amount of points to black applicants, the precentage of blacks at top schools would generally reflect their perceptage of top LSAT scorers. As it is now, the precentage of black students at many law schools compared to percentage of top black LSAT taker is roughly 8-9 to one. Some serious point additions are needed to make this happen.

I understand what you're saying, but AdComs don't add points on to the LSATs of minority students. They got what they got on the LSAT, AdComs can't arbitrarily add points because of race. This type of point adding was unconstitutional under Gratz v. Bollinger. Perhaps a minority got in over a white person who scored higher on the LSAT. This doesn't mean points were added on to his/her score. Instead they looked at other factors such as the type of diversity this person could bring to the law school.

I think its interesting that the woman who sued in Grutter had a 161 LSAT and (of course!) the logical conclusion was she was being discriminated against because she didnt get in.

If LSAT is the lion's share of the admissions procedure (playing along), then...she shouldn't have gotten in. Now if they let in a minority with a 151 LSAT and added those magical 10 points onto their score...then maybe I could understand. But somehow I doubt that that happened.

People arent entitled to certain spots in certain schools. How many disabled people get in with lower LSATs? How many older students get in with lower LSATs? How many people with awesome WE get in with lower LSATs...all in the name of "class diversity"? Why is it that using race is so unfair but other factors are not? I realize that race-based AA is the issue, but I know for a fact that the uniqueness that certain factors bring give other people a boost on their apps as well.

I really don't get it. Unless people have full access to every application and can say that none of their soft factors mattered at all, I really don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that crappy LSAT + dark skin color = IN AT T14 (and notice I said "dark skin" and not "black" because God forbid we remember that there are other minorities benefitting from AA other than blacks)

1. If a particular event affects some members of a group, then it affects all.2. Some blacks are affected by racial prejudices.3. Therefore, all blacks are affected by racial prejudices.

-Premise 1 is wrong. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow.

1. If a particular group has been wronged, that group is entitled to retributive justice.2. AA were wronged (i.e. slavery, segregation...)3. Therefore, AA are entitled to retributive justice (in the form of Affirmative Action).

- You have to define the parameters (in terms of time and size) for the group before you adminster retributive justice. Figuring out who deserves retributive justice is the hard part.

- The safe argument is that some African Americans deserve retributive justice for the injustices done in the past. Ideally, you'd like to track those who were impactly, albeit indirectly, the most. Of course, this possibility is improbable, since determining the magnitude of slavery and jim crow racism on descendants is an incredibly difficult task. So, what do you use as a proxy? Some argue that race is an adequate proxy. However, I think class might be a better proxy. Hence, I disagree with race-based AA.

1. If a particular event affects some members of a group, then it affects all.2. Some blacks are affected by racial prejudices.3. Therefore, all blacks are affected by racial prejudices.

-Premise 1 is wrong. Therefore, the conclusion doesn't follow.

1. If a particular group has been wronged, that group is entitled to retributive justice.2. AA were wronged (i.e. slavery, segregation...)3. Therefore, AA are entitled to retributive justice (in the form of Affirmative Action).

- You have to define the parameters (in terms of time and size) for the group before you adminster retributive justice. Figuring out who deserves retributive justice is the hard part.r- The safe argument is that some African Americans deserve retributive justice for the injustices done in the past. Ideally, you'd like to track those who were impactly, albeit indirectly, the most. Of course, this possibility is improbable, since determining the magnitude of slavery and jim crow racism on descendants is an incredibly difficult task. So, what do you use as a proxy? Some argue that race is an adequate proxy. However, I think class might be a better proxy. Hence, I disagree with race-based AA.

Retributive justice might not be the best word. I think that term originated from people who study the criminal justice system and means meting out a punishment equal to the offenders crime, it focuses on the injury to society as a whole from trangressing the moral rules of society and not on an individual victim, therefore under retributive justice for example a wife who was beaten by her husband couldn't stop the prosecutor from charging the husband with a crime, even if she would prefer not to because the prosecutor is representing society, not the wife personally. Evening taking the word retribution out of the retributive context it is used in academia, retribution still means revenge by punishing an offender, not making the victim whole again. AA obviously focuses on making the victims more whole again, not punishing the offenders for trangressing society's moral law.

I think more what you are trying to say is that if a group has been wrong they are entitled to put back in an equivalent (not the same position, but relatively equal too) position they would have been in if they had not been wronged. If that was the basis for AA (and I don't think it is) then the correct remedy would be on defining the wrong, which is beyond the scope of this post. As for your premises, if they weren't wrong you could say 4% of African Americans would be lawyers (I made that number up) and we get that made up number for the equally made up number that 4% of all other races are lawyers, thus for them to be an equivalent position 4% need to be lawyers--yes you are right it is not focused on the individual experience of the applicant in that scenario but getting the group back to where they would be if they hadn't been wrong. Its an interesting theory you have, but I don't think it actually is the basis for Affirmative Action.

Yes, Grutter only had a 161 when she applied to Michigan and yes, we would consider that a low LSAT score for Micigan, but that wasn't her point. These are the stats used by the court: white students had a median LSAT score of 167 and a median GPA of 3.59, while the corresponding figures were 155 and 3.18 for African American students, and 159 and 3.35 for Mexican American students. Her point was, if the LSAT is irrelevant for them, why isn't it irrelevant for me? The answer of course is, skin color and under the Fourteenth Amendment, that's unconstitutional. My previous post explains my position in regard to this case. Of course we can't see everyone's applications, so no of course we can't mitigate the soft factors, but please, let's not pretend that it was their great essay.

It's really easy to become preoccupied with numbers as indicators of ability. But even the numbers can obscure the truth a little bit. If I have an 4.0 GPA in history from a state school with a 160 LSAT score and there's an African-American applicant with a 153 LSAT and a 2.9 GPA in engineering from MIT, who had a more rigorous major? You can look at raw numbers but they may not tell the whole story. AdComs admit that while there's no recommended prelaw major, what you majored in as an undergrad plays a role.

We don't know what many of these applicants majored in or where they received their bachelor's degrees. Some of them may even have multiple bachelor's degrees, minors, etc. We don't have the whole picture.

and perhaps i overlooked it *edit- perhaps i overlooked it earlier in the thread* but it isn't it also important to look at the desired effect and the actual effect. the desired effect is to even the playing field, give those who were left behind a corresponding boost back. but several studies show some minorities failing in rigorous institutions to which they gained admission. and it certainly creates divisiveness within applicants, though how it affects law school students i can't yet say.

i think AA needs a makeover. use better criteria to identify those who need a boost, include socio-economic factors. and support those students once they get there to help them preserve the boost.

disclosure: im not a racial underrepresented minority and i recognize i won't ever understand what its like to have a skin color different from the majority. but as the child of immigrants i can tell you people of color are not the only people the majority is prejudiced against.

I do understand your point. But remember, if this was even 50 or 60 years ago, it would have been a big accomplishment for you and I to have graduated from high school. Then we would have been expected to get married and start having children. If our parents had the means to send us to college, it would have been to find a suitable match. Even that's not universal but that was often the case. Women still benefit, to varying degrees, from affirmative action policies. It was just as controversial for women to receive special considerations in education and employment then as it is to use race now.

Take a look at the incoming class profiles for any ABA law school. The higher you go in the tiers, the more pronounced the gender discrepency is - men still outnumber women. And to use the cream of the crop as an example, women have a 1 percent attrition rate at Harvard. Men have a 0 percent attrition rate.

It's really easy to become preoccupied with numbers as indicators of ability. But even the numbers can obscure the truth a little bit. If I have an 4.0 GPA in history from a state school with a 160 LSAT score and there's an African-American applicant with a 153 LSAT and a 2.9 GPA in engineering from MIT, who had a more rigorous major? You can look at raw numbers but they may not tell the whole story. AdComs admit that while there's no recommended prelaw major, what you majored in as an undergrad plays a role.

We don't know what many of these applicants majored in or where they received their bachelor's degrees. Some of them may even have multiple bachelor's degrees, minors, etc. We don't have the whole picture.

Undertaking a more rigorous major from a far more difficult school explains why the GPA of the African-American applicant might be lower, but it doesn't explain at all why the LSAT of the African-American applicant is lower.